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and being the girl that almost got killed once ... they put it all over the news, like, everybody recognized me, everybody knew who I was.” At first, the trauma was too much to talk about. She stayed silent for nearly a year. Two days before the anniversary of the attack, Toruga pleaded guilty to attempted arson by reason of insanity. She was sentenced to 7½ years in a mental health facility. Once stabilized, she was ordered to serve out her sentence in a state prison. “I didn’t make my first statement until sentencing,” Robledo said. “That was the first time I ever spoke to the media because it was just too overwhelming to deal with, and to come to terms with what happened, because then it made it all so real.” Shortly after, she appeared on Dr. Phil in Hollywood — a regrettable media debut that “blew up in my face,” she said. “That experience literally altered everything in my brain. It was the worst experience of my life,” Robledo said. “He put a bulletin board up and told me, and the world, everything that I did wrong.” She left feeling more alone than ever, believing somehow she deserved what happened. After that, she disappeared from the public eye. Daring to come home In the months after the attack, Robledo, her newborn Ryland and the rest of her family left Maricopa. “I was having really bad PTSD, and I just couldn’t stay in the house anymore,” Robledo said. “Every time I went in that room, all I could see were flames.” After several times when her parents found her screaming and swinging her arms as she woke from nightmares, they decided to move to Chandler for a fresh start. There, Robledo chose not to share her story or reveal her identity. She worked at a Valley restaurant for about six years. Then, after becoming pregnant with her third child, the family moved back to The Villages at Rancho El Dorado in 2017. “Maricopa is home. Even when a tragic event happens, it’s home,” Robledo said. “It’s where I grew up. It’s where Josh grew up. It’s where we would just want to have our family.” Ryland is now a freshman at Maricopa High School, while his younger siblings Maddox, 10, and Scarlett, 7, attend Butterfield Elementary. “I told myself I was never going to come back to Maricopa, but here I am,” Robledo said. “My son’s going to the same high school that I went to. It’s kind of surreal and crazy to see.”
Ryland and Angelique Robledo pose for a photo at Copper Sky Regional Park just before sunset on June 26.
chase Robledo, Toruga used a lit tea candle to start a fire in the bedroom closet. She was arrested a month later and charged with attempted murder, burglary and arson. According to a police report, Toruga confessed that she “was going to kill Angelique and take the baby.” However, a grand jury dropped the attempted murder charge. “Maricopa was a lot smaller back then, and I was very well known at the time, obviously, just because of it being a small town,” Robledo told InMaricopa in July. “I knew a lot of people
On Feb. 16, 2011, while the two were alone at Robledo’s home, she sensed something was wrong. What she could have never expected was that Toruga had allegedly planned to perform a C-section and abduct her baby. Toruga reportedly sat behind Robledo on her bed in the dark, saying she had a gift for her. As she began to count down from three, Robledo’s instincts kicked in — she sprang up and ran from the room. Police say Toruga was holding a diaper bag that contained two butcher knives. Rather than
Robledo was 17 when she found out she was pregnant with her then-boyfriend, now- husband Josh Cruz’s child. The news was a pivotal moment, she said — pulling her away from a rough stretch of teen partying and substance use. But just weeks before she was due to give birth, something unthinkable happened. She had recently befriended another 18-year-old named Kassandra Toruga, who told her she was also pregnant. That turned out to be a lie.
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